So far from God, too close to the USA
Jérôme Sessini
pour Le Monde 2 et Le Figaro Magazine
This comment, while fatalistic, sums up the situation in Mexico. There is also the joke which Mexicans themselves tell: “Why isn’t Mexico the most corrupt country in the world? Because it pays to be ranked as the second most corrupt.” Two years ago, Felipe Calderon declared war on drug traffickers, and ever since Mexico has been in a state of civil war where the death toll is close to 9000 – drug dealers, police and civilians – in what Mexicans refer to as a “narco-insurrection.” The number of killings between rival gangs has increased as trafficking has been upset by the presence of armed forces: drug leaders have been arrested, their jobs are up for grabs, and gangsters defending drug cartels kill one another in their battles for territory.
The border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez are in a state of siege, with confrontations between cartels reaching a rare degree of cruelty as they fight to gain control of strategic drug routes leading to California and Texas. With this explosion of violence, the United States is now worried that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a Narco-State.
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The cartels have unlimited scope for corruption which affects every part of society, from petty criminals to hit men in the pay of the cartels, not to mention police officers, senior civil servants and even elected representatives.
The worst scenario, and one that the Mexican government is dreading, would be an alliance between the Gulf and Sinaloa, the two most powerful cartels which, alone, are said to have a veritable army of some 100 000 soldiers. And the narco-terror regime in Mexico seems to be changing, going from a “conventional” gangster system with vicious thugs, to terrorism with paramilitary forces trained in guerilla warfare.
If the government does not tackle the root causes of this evil, the spectacular deployment of armed forces will serve no purpose.
Ever since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect in 1994, there has been a huge increase in drug production in areas of extreme poverty (with a population of approximately 24 million). While NAFTA was canceling aid to rural regions, drug traffickers were busy bringing in tractors and seed. Marijuana and opium crops now cover 140 000 square kilometers.
Jérôme Sessini
For the moment, the violence, blood and death affect us, the Mexicans, but once the chaos crosses the border, the USA will realize that this time a war is being waged on their doorstep, not thousands of miles away in Iraq or Afghanistan. Luis, journalist in Ciudad Juarez.
